Western Early Keyboard Association

DR. BARBARA BAIRD, a critically acclaimed recitalist, has performed throughout the United States as well as Argentina, Brazil, Europe and Australia. A frequent adjudicator and clinician, she regularly conducts workshops and master classes for keyboardists, particularly on Baroque and Classical Period Performance, and Keyboard Pedagogy. Baird has been a presenter and recitalist at both national and regional conventions of the American Guild of Organists, and for the Southeastern Historical Keyboard Society, the Western Early Keyboard Association, the Organ Historical Society, the Historical Keyboard Society, the Oregon Bach Festival, several chapters of the American Guild of Organists, and for piano teachers’ guilds in the United States and Australia. She is particularly known for her presentations on organ manual and pedal techniques for beginning organists, as well as New Organist workshops.

Recently retired from the music faculty at the University of Oregon, where she taught organ, harpsichord, and piano for 37 years, Barbara is Organist and Bell Choir Director at First Congregational Church, Eugene, Oregon. After earning her Bachelor of Music degree in Organ  Performance from Texas Christian University, working with Prof. Emmet Smith, she studied three years at the Cologne Conservatory of Music in Cologne, Germany with organist Michael Schneider and harpsichordist Hugo Ruf. Baird received her Master of Music degree in Harpsichord Performance from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, as a student of Larry Palmer. Her Doctor of Musical Arts degree from the University of Oregon is in Organ and Harpsichord Performance, with Piano Pedagogy as a secondary area of study. There she studied with John Hamilton, Guy Bovet, Mark Brombaugh, and Doris Allen.

Videos of Barbara Baird may be viewed on WEKA's YouTube channel.

Baird currently has four CDs available:

• Vienna: Two Centuries of Harpsichord Music (1600-1800)

• The Organ Mass: Selections from Bach’s Klavierübung and Couperin’s Convent Mass

• Pastorale, Partite, and Preludes at the Point, works by Johann Sebastian Bach

• Organ Works for Two, featuring Julia Brown and Barbara Baird, organ duo